SAD 20 getting students geared beyond HS
FORT FAIRFIELD, Maine — With a $350,000 federal grant, local education officials are hoping to help youth find their own paths to learning and careers after 12th grade.
More than 81 percent of Fort Fairfield’s youth graduate from high school, in line with regional averages and pretty much exactly the national average, currently at a historic high.
But education advocates from Aroostook County to California agree that that number needs to increase, and that those youth need to make sure they can learn, evolve and work beyond high school. Increasingly that means going to college for at least two years.
The goal with a new “GEAR UP” grant, $350,000 of programming for seven years, is to broadly increase the number of students both graduating high school and pursuing some kind of postsecondary education, said Kim Dorsey, grant coordinator of GEAR UP for SAD 20.
Fort Fairfield’s is one of six northern Maine school districts and among 26 in the state to receive a GEAR UP grant, via the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness program.
“We’re trying to create opportunities and remove barriers to go to college, whether a two-year or four-year program, so they can reach their dreams,” said Dorsey.
This week the school is introducing the program to the community, and hoping to stir interest among the 215 current students in grades seven through 12. Students are being asked to write short summaries of their life goals, to put on a shared “dream wall,” Dorsey said.
The federal grant will help pay for a variety of programs over the next seven years, with the potential for after-school tutoring, college application assistance and fee-support, campus visits, online and in-person job shadowing and conversations with regional professionals in different industries, Dorsey said.
Currently, 48 percent of Fort Fairfield graduates move onto a four-year college, 31 percent pursue a four-year degree, 14 percent enroll in the military and 7 percent start working right away.
Along with increasing postsecondary success, the goal of the grant is to give kids a nudge towards finding what’s important to them and what options they have. “It’s to help give them ideas for what’s out there in terms of careers and education,” Dorsey said.
